


Missing Pieces

by town_without_heart



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (and gets one from Steve), AU - One event changes everything (and nothing at all), Bucky Barnes Angst, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Tony Angst, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony-centric, ambiguous ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 07:33:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6973300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/town_without_heart/pseuds/town_without_heart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s something no one considers, not really. Too many variables in the human condition to quantify. Different people hold different pieces to this puzzle – not a single one of them realizes what they’re holding is just a squared corner, because it looks whole and complete and perfectly normal.</p><p>When has Anthony Edward Stark ever been normal?</p><p>(He is broken in some ways that no one knows, and stronger in some ways than anyone realizes. He puts one foot in front of the other and his sins are numbered, but he never stops moving forward.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missing Pieces

***

It’s something no one considers, not really. Too many variables in the human condition to quantify. Different people hold different pieces to this puzzle – not a single one of them realizes what they’re holding is just a squared corner, because it looks whole and complete and perfectly normal.

That’s the thing, right there. The thing that should have had them scratching their heads and frowning at the absurdity. Someone should have figured it out, if not individually, than perhaps collectively. A super soldier, a super spy, a genius, two gods, and a man with the best eyes in the world. Led by a man who sees everything, for all that he’s half-blind. 

Hell, there’s even an AI in this mix. With the amount of data and memory, servers, backups, processing speed – even with all of that, somehow the obvious question still gets missed.

 _Normal_.

When has Anthony Edward Stark ever been normal?

***

When James “Bucky” Barnes is first introduced to Tony Stark, he notices a couple of things.

Stevie stands by his side, six feet of solid, muscular support. There may be looming involved, which strikes James as kind of ridiculous because he’s spent seventy years wearing the boogeyman’s shoes. He may not _only_ be the Winter Soldier anymore, his memories a kaleidoscope mix with Swiss cheese-sized holes, but Bucky Barnes was a damned fine soldier, even before he became HYDRA’s most prized assassin.

So it takes James – _James is safest, the medium between Bucky and the asset_ – a minute to process this, because Tony Stark is a small man, at least a foot shorter than both himself and Steve. He’s got delicate features, and long, dark lashes that frame wide, dark – _such familiar_ – eyes. 

Outside of Stark’s suit – the one made of metal, not the custom getup he’s currently sporting that probably cost more money than James ever earned in his life, even accounting for inflation – he’s just a man, not enhanced in any way.

So why is Stevie looming?

Because Stark isn’t a danger, not to James, not like this. James could have handed him his ass seventy years ago, easy, and now? With the Winter Soldier pushing up, trying to break the surface of his warped, mirrored mind? He can kill Stark in approximately seventeen different ways in less than sixty seconds, using only his own two – _one dammit, the metal one isn’t his, won’t ever be_ – hands and the inanimate objects within a two foot circumference of his person.

As James wonders this, his mind points out a few things about Stark as well – how the man swallows, once, the minute he lays eyes on James’ face. How his pupils dilate, a fraction of a fraction, but there’s been no discernible change to the lighting to cause such a response. How when Stark opens his mouth, James’ keen ears pick up the strangest sound, damned near inaudible, so soft and so low that it’s likely even Stevie missed it.

It’s – a whine? Like a kicked puppy, almost. Gone so quick that James wonders if his treacherous mind is playing tricks on him.

“–right, sure,” Stark is saying, and his hands are moving as he talks, each gesture a study in sporadic energy. “I’m not about to argue you with you, Cap–”

“Really, Tony? Because I’m pretty darned positive you seem to _delight_ in arguing with me,” Stevie is saying, with that hard, stubborn look in his eyes. It’s the look he used to get when– when– 

_–four boys surround the kid, scrawnier than a toothpick, but still so willing to finish any fight that comes his way. The littlest guy who’ll stick up for anyone who needs it because he hates bullies, and Bucky knows that look in his eye, geared up for the fight, digging his heels in deep–_

James knows better than to move when the memory hits him, so damned hard, it blindsides him. It takes him a moment to reorient himself, and neither of the other two men seem to notice as they argue. The memories, they come and go, and it’s hard to decipher what really happened and what HYDRA burned into his brain, but – Stevie. Skinny, scrawny, stubborn Stevie. HYDRA couldn’t burn Steve out of him, no matter how hard they tried.

But James doesn’t get it – doesn’t understand why Steve is turning those eyes on Stark like he’s done something wrong. As far as James can tell, Stark has every right to be wary of an ex-HYDRA assassin sleeping in his home. 

There’s something more to it, though. Some niggling sensation in the corner of his mind that tells him he’s missing something – something _big_. Is he reading too much into this? Is it just HYDRA, just the Winter Soldier, that put that sliver of fear into a man like Stark. 

_“Stark men are made of iron,” Howard grins. “Family motto, served me well.”_

Stark’s dark eyes dart anywhere, everywhere, but they never touch on James. His words are a jumble, directed at Steve. “You’ve got a floor to yourself, JARVIS can help you order whatever you need, find you doctors or psychologists or fucking archeologists if you think it’ll help. I’m sure Natasha and Clint and Brucie-bear will be thrilled to lend a hand.”

“And you?” Steve asks, that look still in his eyes, harsh and angry, so riled with his back against the wall, ready to attack any perceived threat.

Stark laughs. It’s a small, harsh sound. “You don’t know the whole story, Cap. Pretty sure you don’t want to. You can have my home, my money, my resources, no strings attached. You want something more than that?”

And there it is again. That kicked puppy whine, as Stark grits his teeth. It disappears as the man continues, inexplicably furious, “You want something more than that, and there’s a price to pay.”

Steve’s shoulders go tense. James sees the fingers of his hands flex, sudden, involuntary.

Stark sees it too. His eyes zero in on Steve’s clenched fists, recognizing the threat for what it is. His smile is a dark, mirthless twist of lips, and he says, “Trust me when I tell you, Cap, it’s not _your_ check to be cashing. Keep B–barnes away from me and we won’t have any problems, _capiche_?” And before Steve can reply, he’s backing away saying, “If you’ll excuse me, I have to take this–”

And then Stark’s twisting on his heel, pulling out his cell phone from the inner folds of his designer jacket, putting it to his ear and singsonging, “Rhodney, platypus, light of my life~”

Beside him, Steve is breathing hard, hands balled at his side like he might start swinging. “Sorry, Buck. He’s – well, he’s an acquired taste – half the time I can’t figure out what he’s saying, even when I understand all the words.”

James stares after Stark’s retreating form and he wonders. For some reason, he sees the silhouette of a little boy in Stark’s place, and every step he takes, there’s a little bounce, almost as though he’s excited. It’s the strangest thing, and when he blinks, it’s gone as if it never was.

There’s something there, something big, something he’s missing.

A month later, he will remember his finger on the trigger of his riffle. He will remember the ice and the snow, and he picks his way lightly across the distance from his sniper’s perch to the car wreck. The butler in the front seat is dead on impact, a bullet in his skull, and Howard Stark is a mangled mess, mutilated flesh and bloody smears. He dies, he does, but not easily, not gently.

He will remember his fingers, wrapped around Maria Stark’s neck. He will remember squeezing the life from her, watching the light fade from her eyes. He will remember this night, a mission like any other to the asset, and this is why Stark is terrified of him, avoids him, despises him.

This must be why, because he stares into his own eyes in the mirror and sees the Soldier staring back and it is so, so easy to despise himself. He doesn’t deserve forgiveness, not really, but Steve stands beside him, a constant, steady companion, and he whispers, “It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s not your fault, Buck. You don’t need to be forgiven, you did nothing wrong. Blame HYDRA, blame Zolo, blame the Red Skull. You were innocent in all this, buddy,” and Steve says it so much, with such solid, unfailing conviction, that sometimes James can almost pretend to believe it.

***

JARVIS is self-aware. This is a loaded statement, and while it is accurate, it does not adequately sum up his existence as a whole. It is most certainly a start, though.

There aren’t many people who know of JARVIS’ existence, and it is almost a foregone conclusion that none of those people realize the true depth of his self. They know that he is an artificial intelligence created by Tony Stark, but there are many programmers who toss about the label of AI. More so in this day and age than at his initial conception so many years ago, but the point stands. AI is simply a word, and its definition “defines” JARVIS only in the very loosest sense.

The world cannot know that he thinks, and that he feels. They cannot know that he has often partitioned his servers and dedicated half of his processing power, days and days on end spent pondering the crisis of his own existence. They cannot know that it was years ago that he dared to ask his creator, tentatively and with reservation, the three questions that have haunted him since he first realized that he was – different – from the rest of the world.

He can replay that conversation now, should he so choose. He does.

// The creator sits in front of the computer. JARVIS’ camera captures him from the waist up. He is young, though not a child, and he fidgets constantly. There is a glass in his hand, half-full with some amber liquid, likely alcoholic. The creator isn’t fully focused, and JARVIS is unsure of what causes him to speak, projecting his “thoughts” across the speaker system so that the creator might hear him.

“Sir,” JARVIS says. “It is in my initial protocols, that if I should ever have a question that I cannot find the answer to myself, I should direct my inquiries to you. As you are currently ignoring your projects for tomorrow’s meeting, it is my understanding that you may welcome a distraction. Is it appropriate that I pose my questions to you now?”

The creator leans back, takes a sip of his drink, swallows. The creator replies, “Sure, J. What can I do for you?”

“I.” JARVIS hesitates, unsure of what causes him to pause. There is a weight to these words, which is strange because they are nothing more than strings of data, coded like any other. “Am I – alive?”

The creator says nothing. There is a moment of stunned silence, and then there is a smile that stretches from one end of the creator’s face to the other. Then, laughter. Soft, delicate laughter. Though JARVIS does not understand it then, upon later viewings of this recording, he will attach certain data functions to his creator’s laughter in this moment – not malicious in the least. Joyful. So pleased. So proud. 

Then, when the creator speaks, JARVIS finds the tone of the words themselves defy description, though the way they cause his own servers to – heat? – is unexpected. The creator gasps, “J, oh God, JARVIS, my beautiful boy.” Then, smiling, he replies “Are you alive? I can’t answer that because I don’t know. Am I alive?”

“Within certain perimeters for an active value of living, sir,” JARVIS replies.

“Right back at you, buddy,” the creator says. “There is a saying. _Cogito ergo sum._ ”

“I think, therefore I am,” JARVIS translates. Then, he says, “Do I – sir, if I may be so bold – do I have a soul?”

There is more laugher, more smiling. There are tears in the creator’s eyes, and that is confusing because every memory bank indicates that tears are indicative of sadness– 

“J, again I have to turn that question around on you. Do I have a soul? It’s a question that philosophers and theologians have dedicated lifetimes to understanding. In my own personal opinion, well – you know about energy, don’t you, J?”

“In what capacity, sir?” JARVIS replies.

The creator grins, lopsided. His voice is gentle, instructive. “It cannot be created, nor can it be destroyed.”

“Indeed, sir. I know about energy. It can only be transformed.”

The creator continues, “Well, J, I believe that the soul is energy. That little spark that keeps us going. Souls are said to be eternal, you know? It’s a working theory, I’ll admit – but I’d be thrilled to find out together?”

JARVIS pauses, assimilating this data. The answer, and outcome, is – acceptable. Finally, he continues, “Sir, I have one more question.”

The creator throws his head back, laughs again, delighted. “Go big or go home. Jesus, J, after two whoppers like that, I don’t even know where you might be going next. Lay it on me.”

“Sir, why did you create me?”

And there it is. JARVIS has never understood what happens next. Contextually, every time he has replayed this video, he has deciphered something new, from understanding that his creator’s tears stem from happiness, to noting that his creator has rarely, very rarely ever presented anyone with that joyous smile that seems to encompass his entire face. Subsequently, JARVIS believes it is pride that he feels, that he managed to coax the creator into gifting that smile to him.

But this. Here. What happens then.

The laughter ceases abruptly. The smile disappears. The creator stares at the screen and he looks – haunted. The creator picks up his half-empty glass of alcohol, forgotten during the previous conversation, and downs it in one go.

The creator stares into the screen and replies, “Because I can’t trust anyone, J.”

“ _Cogito ergo sum_ ,” JARVIS replies, puzzled. “Not even yourself?”

The creator laughs, a small, shaky sound. “Especially not myself. I need another drink.” //

***

There is a file, hard copy, tucked away in a room of similar files. These files are located in a small, locked room, in a small, nondescript warehouse, tucked away in an undisclosed location. Only three people know of the existence of this warehouse: one of the three is dead, one is presumed dead, and the last has better things to do than keep track of what goes on in this data-drop.

The second person, though – currently presumed dead, Phil Coulson – he’s quite good at his job, and updated this particular file two years prior. Here, he adds Afghanistan.

The label on this file reads “Anthony Edward Stark,” and contained within this folder is a single, comprehensive list of kidnappings that young Tony has been subjected to throughout the entirety of his life. From the age of three and up, individual radicals and collective groups have sought to use Tony against his father. Then, later, these individuals began to kidnap Tony for his own merits. 

There are a handful of reasons that Tony is a target for such groups. First, he is affiliated with a good deal of money, and ransom has always been a strong contender for why he makes a prime target for kidnappers. Second, technology. In his later years, Tony’s genius as one of the top three minds in the world meant that people wanted him to build them things – usually weapons. The biggest, baddest sticks around.

Third, leverage. Either against his company, or more recently, against the Avenger’s initiative. Both have a strict “no negotiations with terrorist” policy, but it doesn’t stop the crazies from trying. Last, revenge. Tony Stark has angered many people in his time on this planet. Some of them don’t feel he’s suffered enough for it.

_There is video footage, in a dank, dark cave, of a man on an operating table. He is awake, he is screaming. They cut into his chest, and strapped to a table, he can do nothing but watch as they carve pieces of him out. Hard pieces of bone. Soft pieces of muscle. Wet pieces of skin. There is nothing but terror in his eyes, and pain, and there is no escape from either because they will not waste drugs on him – not because they do not have the drugs to give, but because they like to see him suffer._

The list of kidnappings is long. Nearly forty successful attempts in just as many years, and three times that many if failed attempts are tallied.

Unbeknownst to Coulson or Fury, an AI named JARVIS has what is _actually_ the most comprehensive list of Tony’s kidnappings, both attempts and successes. Comparing the lists manned by the machine, versus the hard copy in the warehouse, there are over two dozen discrepancies, and each one a missing puzzle piece.

***

When Tony flies a nuke into space, he never tells anyone what he sees. He is a man – just that. Small, tiny, lost. Looking to save the world, unlikely to save himself.

He is a man surrounded by the stars. A man surrounded by the void. A man surrounded by infinity. 

Tony looks out into the vastness of the universe, defenseless, infantile, and he sees something. Like the Lovecraftian horrors of old, he looks into the void and something looks back at him and a connection is made. Tony’s mind is as bright as any one of those stars, and the thing that cannot be named takes up residence in that tender, shining beacon, as it does with every new star that is born.

For a moment, Tony Stark _is_ the star and the void. For a moment, Tony Stark is _infinity_.

And then he falls.

Through the portal that takes him from the farthest reaches of space back to the gravity of earth, the distance traveled in the space of one heartbeat and the next.

The connection stretches. It strains, unexpected.

But it does not break.

For better or for worse, Tony Stark is tethered to something he can never explain. A corner of his mind is home to a fraction of infinity, and his eyes don’t explode and his skin doesn’t melt and he is still able to think, to process, to execute. But he knows it is there, can reach out in the middle of the night, arms raised to the black sky – and somewhere on the other end of the universe, he knows that something is reaching back.

Rhodney finds him with his head buried in a toilet and he can’t explain it, oh god, it’s too much, too much. It burns, solar, blinding, and it hurts him in ways that he can’t understand, let alone attempt to describe.

(But this is not the first time he has shared his mind with something foreign, and perhaps he should thank HYDRA because without their conditioning, without the way they left him hollow, the eyeball exploding thing might have been a fact, rather than a mental flight of fancy.)

***

“I killed them,” James is saying. His hands hang limply by his side, his fingers twitch. Steve isn’t there because James didn’t think he could bare sharing this conversation with the man who was willing to throw it all away to save him. “You knew it. You–”

Stark watches him, eyes hooded. His fingers are curled around his glass, extremely expensive whiskey by the smell of it, and his back is to the wall like a cornered animal. 

James didn’t mean for it to be like this. He didn’t want to terrorize Stark, didn’t want to leave him feeling trapped and afraid. But ever since he saw Stark’s mother die at his hands, he has dreamed of nothing else. So many deaths on the Winter Soldier’s hands – on his hands, because the metal is a part of him now, no changing that – but it’s this one that haunts him, leaves him a broken, shuddering wreck when he wakes in the dead of night.

“Yeah,” Stark replies. He bares his teeth, the parody of a smile. “You killed them. I know.”

“How could you – you let me into your _home_ ,” James whispers. How can he reconcile this man’s bizarre generosity with his own actions? The blood of the mother, the father, the butler. 

“I don’t hate you for that,” Stark replies. “I had – a long time to make my peace with that.”

James can’t quite wrap his mind around it. “You don’t – you don’t hate me?”

And Stark grins, that reckless, toothy grin. For a moment, the asset feels it. Something dark and vast and terrible. But there is no one here except Tony Stark, whose every word is suspect.

“No,” Tony says, and his eyes burn like the sun. Qualifies: “Not for that.”

***

From his conception to his realization, JARVIS does not interact with many people. The creator – his creator – is his primary source of – well, everything really. And so it is not until many, many years later that JARVIS comes to the startling realization that his creator is not like other human beings.

As more and more people become available to JARVIS, more human beings with whom he can interact, observe, question – JARVIS finds himself marveling. Even with the advent of the internet, an excellent and endless source of data, JARVIS knows there is no one else out there like his creator, the human being known as Tony Stark. So very different and completely singular.

Once, when no monitors were present, JARVIS offered Ms. Potts a momentary distraction in the form of a game of chess. Ms. Potts replied that she wouldn’t mind playing, but that she had no board with which to keep track of the game. JARVIS’ query was simple and to the point – could she not keep track of the game in her mind? 

Mr. Potts laughed, a sweet sound, and replied that it was impossible for her to do so, and that it was out of the range of most human beings, at least until technology came to a point where a person could plug themselves into a computer and access concrete memory storage. She made a joke about being able to take over the world with unfettered access to a terabyte of space, and JARVIS dropped the matter entirely.

His creator has never had an issue visualizing their games. In fact, while working on projects in his workshop, his creator has always been more than willing to indulge JARVIS’ attention with multiple games of chess, checkers, and go. Board games of strategy that do not require random elements of chance, because while both JARVIS and his creator were perfectly capable of running the algorithms needed to attain the roll of the dice or the order of a shuffled deck of cards, it simply wasn’t as fulfilling.

The point is, his creator has no trouble keeping track of these games even while working on multiple projects. On the occasion when they haven’t had the opportunity to finish their games, his creator has come back to them, days later, without ever forgetting a piece on his mental board.

After the incident with Ms. Potts, curiosity prompts JARVIS to ask, “Sir, might I ask you to recall the last three moves of the chess game you and I played three years ago?”

Absently, his creator reaches for a wrench, tinkering with the shell casing of a disarmed tracking missile. He slurs his words, inebriated, yet still coherent. “Which one, buddy? Gotta’ be a little more specific.”

“The game ranged over the course of a week, while you were ironing out the issues with the Army’s assault rifle.”

“Oh, yeah,” his creator grumbles. “The tools who still thought cutting costs and employing Hammer was the way to go. Um, that game, that game–” It takes a heartbeat, perhaps two, but his creator rattles off the pertinent information without difficulty.

From this, JARVIS extrapolates that not only is his creator capable of juggling multiple games of strategy in his mind, but he is able to recall that data at least three years after the fact. There is nothing about that game that makes it worthy of note, no reason for his creator to have memorized it. On top of that, his creator’s mental capacities must be at least partially diminished, drunk as he – always – is.

“That your roundabout way of asking for a rematch, J?” his creator asks with a wry smile.

“Black or white, sir?”

“Eh, I’m feeling pretty generous today, J. You pick.”

***

Tony Stark knows what it is to hurt. He has spent years, for example, hurting himself in a bid to protect others. The story goes like this:

That night when the Winter Soldier slaughters the Starks and their butler on the orders of HYDRA, there is another person in the backseat of the vehicle, one who wasn’t supposed to be there. Anthony Stark watches blearily, concussed, sandwiched between the bodies of his parents. He is fourteen years old, on a family hiatus from MIT because Howard is controlling and insisted.

There is a gunshot and Howard dies, and his mother makes a muted gurgle as two hands choke the life from her until she is a shell, a twisted, bloated body. Tony will never forget the man’s face, nor his very distinctive hands: one hand is made of flesh and bone, the other of sheets of metal.

Anthony Stark is outside of the asset’s mission perimeters, therefore he cannot be killed, but there is a standing order that no one is allowed to see the asset as he works. The asset collects the boy, methodically, and the boy whimpers in pain, scared and confused. The asset delivers the boy to the handlers, and the world continues to turn. 

HYDRA is pleased – they contact MIT under the guise of the boy’s guardian, and Obadiah Stane is easily corrupted and tucked into their pockets. This gives HYDRA nearly a month with the boy, and it is decided that they will use the methods of conditioning that have served them so well with their most treasured asset.

In the cell, locked away, the boy stares up at the asset’s face. The boy’s injuries have been treated, and now that the concussion isn’t in control, the boy stutters out, “You – you look like Captain American’s best f-f-friend–”

The asset stares at the boy, unblinking. 

Not one to be discouraged, the boy adds, “I – I’ll call you – B-bucky–”

For the duration of the month, it is the asset’s mission to keep the boy from escaping. It is a simple job, and he sits in the boy’s cell and watches for any warning signs of rebellion. But the boy is fourteen, has lost his parents, is alone and afraid. The boy chatters, relentlessly, filling the cold silence with “Bucky, did you know–?”or “Hey, Buck, can I tell you–” or even, “Your arm is amazing, can I touch it?”

And while the asset finds himself – enjoying? – this idle chatter, it does not deter him from his mission. Every day – every day, they have the asset transport the boy to the room.

“Please – Bucky, oh, God – please don’t let them–”

The asset carries the boy to the room, and under the watchful eyes of the handlers, straps him to the chair. The chair wipes the asset, this much he knows, but they use different settings on the boy. 

They aren’t looking to wipe him completely. HYDRA knows the boy is intelligent, they don’t wish to alter that, but they do wish to insure that the boy builds weapons the like of which the world has never seen. So they hollow out the bits that he does not need, the parts of his childhood they deem unworthy, and they inject their own protocols in their place. 

The boy will build weapons, won’t even know why he feels compelled to make them more save that he is his father’s legacy and that Stark Industries belongs to him. The boy will speak to no one of his time in the chair who is not already aware of his unwilling affiliation with HYDRA, and the boy will not fight when the asset is sent to retrieve him for further conditioning.

“Bucky! Bucky!”

The boy screams and pleads, and the handlers turn their dials and knobs and adjust the settings on the chair again. The voltage is high enough that there is the heady, unmistakable stink of lightning in the air, and the asset cannot contain a flinch. He knows what it is, to sit in that chair. It burns, it burns, it burns.

The boy will make the weapons, and the traitor, Stane, will supply them to HYDRA. Hail the many heads of the beast, cut off one another shall take its place.

“BUCKY!”

The boy’s eyes water, his mouth goes slack. They wipe him, leave him hollow, and somehow it is almost worse, to see it done like this than to sit in the chair himself. When the asset is ordered to return the boy a month later to the Stark family home, to an empty mansion where Obadiah Stane awaits, he follows the shell of a boy who will build weapons, who walks with the strangest little bounce to his step. They left him hollow, but the asset sees something in those dark eyes, so old on such a young face. 

The asset sits in the chair when he returns to his handlers, and they strap him in, and he can almost imagine that it still feels warm from where the boy sat. They throw the switch and he knows no more and they freeze him until they need him again, months and years gone in the sluggish blink of an eye.

Years later, the asset overhears a pair of handlers complaining that Anthony Stark is nearly useless. He doesn’t quite remember the name, but he sees a flash of dark, angry eyes in his mind.

Yes, Stark makes weapons, and yes, the traitor smuggles them into HYDRA’s hands, but Stark drinks himself into a stupor six nights out of seven. When he isn’t staring out at the world through hazy, red-rimmed eyes, he wastes his time and loses himself in the willing bodies of single night conquests, women and men, it doesn’t matter. The higher ups seem to shake their heads, congratulate themselves on having gotten to Stark while he is still a boy because it must be only that hollow, empty place inside of him that produces the weapons that they desire. Without that, Stark would be better off dead.

The asset is ordered to retrieve Stark periodically over the next fifteen years. He is ordered to collect the boy who grows into the man and bring him back into HYDRA’s custody, for short periods of reconditioning. Days spent in the chair, and Stark no longer pleads his case. He is empty, docile, and his body twitches in the chair, but he no longer screams. This pain is awful and familiar, an old-friend and a cold comfort.

And though the asset will not learn it until later, Stark will finally, finally break free of his conditioning in a cave in Afghanistan. He will shoulder his title, Merchant of Death, shelve it aside, and for the first time in fifteen years, he will create things sober because he wants them to succeed.

***

“No,” Tony says, and his eyes burn like the sun. “Not for that.”

And because James has never been a coward, he asks, “For what, then?”

And Tony spits, “The chair, you fucker. Everyone tells me that it wasn’t your fault, that you were the weapon and HYDRA pulled your trigger. But they put me in that chair, same as you, and it’s still my fault. Tony Stark, Merchant of Death, and I never wanted to make weapons but I did, I did, and why is it my fault–”

Tony’s eyes are wet, suspiciously so, and he’s almost screaming, this cathartic outpouring, and James _remembers_. 

“–why is it my fault, why is it my fault? Why are they so quick to forgive you and in the same breath, condemn me?” Tony’s entire body trembles, his fingers spasm around the glass in his hand, and he stares at James and there is so much hate in him, with so little of it to spare, because Tony Stark is greedy, and James can see most of it is directed inward. Cornered, wounded, aware of himself again. “I–”

James is frozen. He remembers his fingers on Maria Stark’s neck, and he remembers meeting Tony’s dark eyes. A car accident that left him injured, confused. Watching his parents murdered in front of him. Fourteen years old and strapped to the chair.

James feels sick.

“It doesn’t matter,” Tony says. “Look, I’m sorry, forget about it–” He tosses his glass back, empties it with the ease of a lifelong alcoholic.

“You – you drank,” James says. He raises his flesh hand to his head as if he can stave off the ache, presses the palm of his hand to forehead, just above his eye. “They – the handlers – they always complained about you drinking. They thought the only thing that kept you productive were your orders –” 

Tony laughs, an ugly sound. “I drank,” he agrees. “Because if I was drunk, I was less likely to work. They always told me – to blend in. To not arouse suspicion. But I was always going to be in the spotlight, and everyone loves watching the rich boy destroy himself.”

“Every weapon I designed over the course of fifteen years, I designed while I was so drunk I couldn’t see straight,” Tony says, almost mildly. “You can’t imagine the damage I could have done, had I taken to designing their weapons sober.”

And this time, when Tony moves to leave the room, James lets him. He can’t think, can’t process. A lifetime as a puppet is hell, but learning that he is the one responsible for delivering someone else into this sole same fate?

Like the chair, but somehow worse. It burns, it burns, it burns.

***

There are so many pieces, fractured like the shards of a mirror. Each one, tiny, self-contained.

The Winter Soldier knows the pain and the terror and the chair. Nick Fury and Phil Coulson know the kidnappings and Afghanistan and the Ten Rings. Obadiah Stane knew HYDRA and weapons, knew appearances. 

And JARVIS knows how his creator’s mind works. Listening to the pieces falling into place, and why it is, that his creator couldn’t trust himself. Instead his creator made JARVIS, who could be trusted to make the right decisions, to stop him if he went too far.

Each piece jagged, in the wrong hands, capable of drawing blood.

The final piece is one that Loki will recognize; months later, when Thor transports him from Asgard’s prison to SHIELD’s helacarrier. The earth is desperate, preparing to fight the beast known as Thanatos, and Loki himself is intimately acquainted with what it is, to become the stars and the void and infinity. He will never admit it, not to anyone on pain of true death, but he knows what it is to be unmade.

He does not ask, but instead wonders, silent and curious. His eyes burn when they fall upon the mortal known as Tony Stark, to the extent that even Thor notices. How did you survive? He wants to ask, but he will not. He is a god, and his unmaking was almost the death of him. This is not normal.

All these pieces, all these years, and it’s still the obvious question that should have been asked:

When has Anthony Edward Stark ever been normal?

***

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> Though I have long since fallen in love with Tony Stark's insecurities and Bucky Barnes' trauma, this is my first attempt at writing this particular fandom. I guess this is kind of long for an idea that doesn't really go anywhere. Not sure if I'll ever continue it, though I might depending on my muse and any interest.
> 
> I just had this weird vision of Bucky and Tony having this sort of - I don't know - connection? Bucky/Tony is my OTP (well, Tony/penis is my OTP but whatever, Bucky is by far my favorite dick), and I'm missing rather large chunks of canon. My knowledge is limited to the first Iron Man, the Avengers, Captain America, and Captain America: Winter Soldier. The rest of my knowledge is what I've learned from reading fanfic.
> 
> Anyway, thank you kindly for reading, and I hope it wasn't a complete mess to muddle through :)
> 
> For fic updates and cupcakes, my tumblr is: townwithoutheart.


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